I'm a mom to four Gen Zers (anyone born between 1997-2012) and this fact has shaped most of what I have cared about and paid attention to for the past 25 years of my life - which is exactly, as I write, half of my life to this point. I got a full-fledged education in how to grow a human heart by working at home to raise these four people into adulthood. In that process it was eventually and inevitably revealed that most of what I thought I knew about discipleship and cultivating human spirits needed to be dismantled, challenged, and refined by the actual reality of life. My oldest was one year old when 9/11 shook our nation to its core. Little could I imagine how this event would shape the way this generation grew up to see the world. When you're that small and the grown-ups around you are consistently scared, angry, and united against a constant invisible threat, it shapes what you think it means to be human in this world together.  As a mom of pre-teens, I had to consider the complexities of iPhones, social media, and all that comes with this new technology that was never a part of my childhood (or even my younger adulthood). At first I exerted my superior principles to keep this technology out of our home. But as my kids grew I realized what they really needed me to do was to help them learn to find God's heart in and through the new reality that without this obnoxious, all-consuming tech, they would be hard-pressed to finish college or find a job. Humbling, for me; I didn't have a choice. I only had a very hard task that I could fulfill or ignore: to help my kids "know Christ" even in this area (Phil 3:10). But if Corrie ten Boom's father could guide his family into a Christian experience of the Holocaust, I knew I could do it with iPhones and Instagram. Then, in 2020, just as they were getting ready to venture out into the beginnings of their adult lives, the world stopped turning. College, jobs, even relationships all had to get put on hold for the pandemic, and yet again I experienced another layer of shock at what my kids' generation was being asked to accept and even embrace. The realization that I cannot change the world for my kids, but must instead rally alongside them to fortify their hearts for whatever comes - this realization changed me forever. As I've rallied alongside my kids and their friends, I have witnessed Gen Z to be one of the bravest, kindest, and most humbly and beautifully broken generations I have ever heard of or read about in any rendering of human history. They are more thirsty for a realistic and sound way of being human in the world that actually works than I can remember my generation ever was. They have been handed a system so incredibly broken that they are actually, in my opinion, likely to emerge as a generation full of true and simple wisdom. What they long for, and what they need is vision, for "Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint" (Prov 29:18). I do not think this means they need my vision, although I can certainly provide that for those who ask. You might think, "Gen Z is lost, how will they find vision?" Yet vision is precisely what they have lost, and until they gain it they will continue to stumble. What they need is God's vision for a very uncertain and crumbling future. They need to see themselves and the world the way he sees them. Most of all, they need to see him, for until anyone has beheld the glory of the Lord, they cannot be like him (2 Cor 3:18). What they need most from their parents and grandparents is a humble recognition that the culture that has already resulted in so much damage in Gen Z is the result not of their folly, but ours. We were the ones who thought the internet would be a great idea. We were the ones who invented the iPhone and the first versions of social media. We were the ones who ran the world during the times of 9/11 and, twenty years later, the pandemic. Gen Z chose none of this. Yet they will be the ones to choose what to do with what they have been handed. And for this they will also, like us, be held accountable for the effects of these choices on their children, Gen Beta, which began this year. And so, here at the beginning of the rest of my life, I feel a lot like I did in those early years of being a mom. I repent on behalf of myself and my generation for the foolish devices, attitudes, ideologies, lies, and vengeances we have agreed to and the destruction it has caused. I declare the vision of Jesus Christ over Gen Z and I call out their authority and dominion in the earth. As an older woman now, I pour my heart and spirit into the fruitfulness of this generation, so their leadership in the world will reflect the goodness of God. This is my heart for my four children. This is my heart for Gen Z.